Part of having a home business is building up
business, yes, but another important part is to become
a part of a network of others who work from home.

Having a home business can be frustrating at times,
especially if your friends and family aren’t
supportive, so it’s always a good idea to get in touch
with others who are going through the same types of
things that you are going through.

One of the best places to go for home business support
is the Internet. It’s full of message boards and
forums for people who are in the home business and who
are talking about the ins and outs of working from
home.

One thing that should be noted is that this is not a
place to go and promote your home business, although
there are probably threads that allow you to do that.
Everyone on the message board or forum has a home
business. This is a place to go and talk to other
business owners and to find out what works and doesn’t
work.

The first thing that you will want to do is to
introduce yourself. Usually it’s acceptable to say
what type of business you have as part of your
introduction, but make it short. After you have
introduced yourself, go through the different threads
to see if any of the questions that you have are
already being discussed.

Be sure to check the board or forum rules, but it’s
pretty much universal what is expected of those that
join the boards, and what is allowed.

Being an entrepreneur can be very stressful for the most part. Worrying about how you are going to pay the bills, keep the lights on, keep the clients happy, the list goes on and on. Few people take care of what this stress is doing to themselves. Increased levels of stress for long durations of time can have extreme adverse effects on your body. In this article, I wanted to share some of the ways that I deal with stress.

Learn to reboot

I know this one sounds strange but hear me out. Every day you probably have occurrences that upset you, make you mad, stress you out, etc. I bet you wake up the next day, and those negative feelings about what happened previously are still there or they crop up throughout the day. You must learn to let those feelings go. Preferably, you would want to do this after the event, but if you can’t then you want to do it before you go to bed. Just let it go. Think of it in terms of a computer. If you keep a computer running for a long period of time, it collects crap in its memory and doesn’t run very well. But if you reboot the computer every day, it gets rid of the crap in its memory and runs like a charm. That’s what you have to do, reboot.

Let things slide off of you

Again this sounds strange, but I will explain. If you’ve ever seen a duck in the rain, you might have noticed that its feathers are not getting wet. This is because there is a coat of oil over the duck’s feathers that prevent them from getting wet and thus preventing them from flying. This is what you have to do. You have to create a coating around yourself (psychologically of course) that prevents harmful, mean, nasty comments from getting inside you where your emotions takeover (and thus increase your stress). This way, you can deal with these sorts of things with your logical and reasonable parts of your head and not your heart.

What’s the worst that can happen?

You have to ask yourself in every stressful situation “what’s the worst that can happen?” If you lose a client, what’s the worst that will happen? You will lose money; and they might talk badly about your business to their friends or contacts. However, you can always make more money by acquiring new clients or customers. There are probably millions of people in your country and there are billions of people on the planet. Ask some of them if they are in need of your services.

These changes probably won’t eliminate your stress overnight. You will need to practice them every day. But if you do, I will guarantee that you will be feeling a lot less stress.

So, you’re interested in starting your own home business eh?

My Journey To Self Employment

I’m going to use this post to introduce myself and to talk about why starting your own home business may or may not be a good idea.

My name is Don Marges and I have always had a very independent attitude. I have never really been into the idea of working for someone else for years and years, then retiring, then die. Someone else having the ability to fire me or lay me off whenever they want really does scare me. 

About 5 years ago, I made it a goal to become financially independent. This came from a situation where I was basically self-employed while in college. I had just came from a programming job in the summer in between semesters and I didn’t want to go back to working as a Security Guard. For a while I was really scared. Even though I was a student, I still had some bills to pay and if I didn’t pay them then I would suffer from bad credit. At the end of that period, I was surprised to find that I came out ok. I made way more money in being self-employed with only 2 or 3 clients then I did working Security and I got to choose the hours that I worked.

From there I worked at a magazine company where I furthered my business, marketing and promotional skills. It was a great experience, but I still had that “itch”. I just had to be on my own.

The Present

It was my experiences that prompted me to start this blog. I want this blog to act as a focal point of information and to allow other people who want to work from home, to network and share their lessons and experiences.

Why You Should Start Your Own Home Business

One of the main reasons for starting your own home business is the freedom it affords. You can choose your hours, vacation time, sick days, etc. You can also choose ho much money you make.

Another reason is to be closer to your family. This is particularly appealing for stay-at-home mothers and fathers who want to work and make money while staying at home and taking care of the children.

The last main reason that comes to my mind is avoiding the commute. Where I live, it was a 45 mins + drive to my place of employment! It was a nightmare. It was also incredibly wasteful. When I calculated how much time I spent in my car over the course of a year, it came out to nearly 5 weeks!

Why You Shouldn’t Start Your Own Business

Owning any sort of business is a huge commitment. Your responsibilities will increase exponentially. If you are not interested in the perceived hassels of running your own business then it isn’t for you.

Also, you aren’t guaranteed to get a paycheck every week or two weeks. Sometimes you will go without money and there were times when I didn’t really have any money to spend. If you can’t stomach this or the idea is not appealing to you then you should reconsider.

In the end, it’s your choice. You can look at starting your business from many different standpoints. For most people, you will see the concept from the two standpoints above. Admittedly, I am on the first side. Which side are you on?